Everything Changes - a Pokemon Emerald Contest 'Locke
by Pokeman92
Summary: Terry has just moved from frigid Mt. Shiretoko all they way to the tropics of Hoenn. Unimpressed with his new life, Terry decides to go on a journey to face his fears and discover what the world truly has to offer.
1. Chapter 1

_Darkness_. The endless absence of any visual stimuli. Stick anyone in a completely dark room, and they are liable to go crazy. Fortunately, Terry hadn't hit that point quite yet.

The truck had stopped only five times, four for fuel and once to sleep for the night. It had maybe been a day total since they left, and while the trip had started out interesting the morning when they started packing up the truck, it quickly dulled when Terry found out there was no room in the cab for him. Still, the breaks had kept him sane to say the least.

Terry leaned back against the soft pile of clothes he had made up for himself in the back of the truck and closed his eyes, not that it made much difference anyway with all the _nothingness_ around him. His whole life had been nothingness, from the moment he was born in the middle of nowhere, Mount Shiretoko, to right now, the epitome of nothingness.

Even the town they were moving to shared the same _nothingness_. Of all the places to move down south, Mom just had to pick the smallest dump of a town in the region? At least there was port Shiretoko back home, where Terry could sit and watch the ships go in and out as the years went by. Their new town, Little...something Town, was just that: the tiniest "town" to have ever existed, with maybe five or six houses, a tiny research lab, and trees surrounding the place in all four directions. Supposedly there wasn't even any snow in the winter! What sort of place didn't have snow in the winter anyway?

Terry's thoughts were interrupted by a sudden bump in the road, followed by a loud, persistent rattling. _A dirt road._ They must be getting close, Terry thought, pulling himself back up from the pile of clothes he had on the floor of the truck. Their new hometown supposedly had only dirt roads. Not only was the town small and insignificant, it also hadn't been updated in at least a century or two! Come to think of it, Terry hadn't asked if there were even basic necessities like running water and electricity...what if there wasn't, and they were going to live like savages or something?

Well, that probably wasn't going to happen, but the mere thought of it _was_ frightening. Mom watched too much TV to give it up when they moved. Terry couldn't even _imagine_ Mom even going a few days without her favorite shows, like "Doctor Hoothoot" and "Dexbusters." They were a bunch of crap shows anyway, or at least that's how he judged the 2-3 episodes he saw so far.

It was only a couple more minutes before the truck finally came to a stop once more. Terry's eyes instantly turned to the back doors, waiting for someone to open them. He couldn't wait to get out, stretch his legs, and maybe grab a drink of water. The heavy aluminum doors swung open noisily as someone opened them from the outside. A blinding white light flooded into the trailer, followed by the distinct scent of pine trees mixed with the humid, hot air that rushed in. He couldn't see, but Terry felt the trailer dip down slightly as someone came on board and extended a hand to him. Shielding his eyes from the light with his left hand, Terry grabbed the man's rather hairy arm with his right, and jumped down off the truck.

As Terry lowered his arm and adjusted to the bright sunlight, he turned to the mover that helped him off to say "thanks," but immediately yanked his hand away when his adjusted vision revealed a...a _thing._ Yes, that was the only real way to describe what was before him, a_thing_ with lots of white fur, red eyes, long arms, and _claws_ for hands. The creature seemed to stare back at him with some sort of menacing grin as Terry backed slowly away, but nearly tripped over another box. He yanked his head around and saw yet _another_ of the same hideous monsters, this one even bigger and more menacing.

"Uh, Mom?!" Terry yelled out, panicked. "Where are you?!"

"Over here, honey!" Mom yelled out from the front of the truck. "What's wrong?"

"What's wrong?!" he heaved, stumbling back towards the front of the truck as quickly as he could. "There are these huge monstrous _things_raiding our stuff, that's what's wrong!"

"Oh?" Mom poked her head out from the open door and looked past him at the creatures, which were now moving several boxes at a time off the truck. "No, honey, those are the Pokemon movers. I called ahead and asked them to be here for this morning. I'm sorry, didn't I tell you they would be here?"

"No! I told you I can't stand those things, couldn't you have had them wait or something?"

"But they're Vigoroth, dear. Your father trains Vigoroth for his gym, you know."

"So? That doesn't make them any less monstrous to _me_" Terry replied angrily, turning away from the front cab to around at the new town. It was pretty much what he expected: hot, humid, and very nearly _empty_. Their house seemed nice enough though, it was a fairly recent ranch-style with a spacious front porch and a nice flower garden out front. The only other interesting thing to look at in the mostly wooded area was the far-off speck of another large house sitting about a half a mile down the road from them.

"Look Terry," Mom replied, her voice quite tense now. "These Pokemon are trained professionals! They are perfectly tame, there's nothing to worry about!"

"Hmph, speak for yourself."

"That's it young man!" Mom yelled as she emerged from the truck cabin with several large boxes and slammed the door angrily with her foot. "If you're going to be like that, you can just wait here with your stuff while I direct the movers downstairs! Then when the movers leave, _you_can move your stuff in _yourself!_"

She dropped the heavy boxes next to the truck cab, kicking up a huge cloud of dust as the landed with a **clunk**, and stormed off inside leaving Terry alone in the street. That suited Terry perfectly fine though, and he dropped right back down next to the boxes to wait. It's not like there was anything interesting to do inside anyway...


	2. Chapter 2

p class="MsoNormal" style="color:  
#2c3635; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;  
line-height: 19.5px; background-color: #fffffa;"It would be several hours before the movers left the house, so Terry decided to take a walk to get away from the chaos before him. emMaybe the neighbors are normal? /emThe only way to find out,  
he decided, was to head down the road and meet them in person./p 


End file.
